Very nice work. I'm loving this project. Looking at your rear trailing arms it looks like the plate which the pivots are connected to is mechanically fastened to the plate that supports the hub. Was this done to allow camber adjustment? Or just to ease in fabrication of the arms. I do see what looks like an adjuster bolt which controls vertical movement, is this for camber? Also, what does the interface between the two plates look like? I'm guessing that it is not just two flat surfaces because I couldn't see that being nearly strong enough.

Yes, the arms are made in 3 pieces. Aircraft 7075 aluminum, it's crazy strong stuff. The inner bar with the heims that pivot is slotted in a radius around the outer of the 3 bolts. This gives me my camber adjustment. Set screws are used to lock the setting and make for quick fine adjustments. Toe is set by adjusting the inner heim in and out. It is just a flat bolted connection. Then I have a machined block on the other end that adapts the flat arm to the subaru knuckle. I made it this way since it takes a few tries to get something like this right, and a modular design is much easier to change. It took a few tries to get the front bar right this time around, since the arms pretty much tuck up tight to the floorpan now. This is all made from scrap at work. It's definitely not the simpliest setup, but it works.

man i love that front suspension set up i bet if you made those for other common swaps people would pay good money for them i know i would love to have a set up like that. you have a very nice car and crazy fab skills!! my new favorite thread! lol

About time I updated this thread. Gradually making improvements to the build after I rack up more miles and testing. Recently re-did the front struts. I was getting a lot of hub deflection from my initial version with 350z bearings. Enough that my rotors were contacting my a-arms under cornering load. So, I stepped up to the monster 370Z hub assemblies and fabricated a much beefier mounting design on the strut. Deflection should be no issue now. Settled on an alignment of -1.7 camber all around, with a whopping 8 deg caster on the front.

very very nice man ..... i got a 2.4 ecotec and a sky 6 speed at the house now i know what i would like to do with it some day.
your fab skills are top notch when you put in the engine and trans how far back was your shifter compared to stock ?

tylersloan wrote:very very nice man ..... i got a 2.4 ecotec and a sky 6 speed at the house now i know what i would like to do with it some day.
your fab skills are top notch when you put in the engine and trans how far back was your shifter compared to stock ?

Actually the car was an auto, so I'm not even sure exactly how it compares to stock shifter placement. All I know is that it seems perfect to me. I mounted my seats a few inches further back than most so maybe that helps some. At 6'2 I need all the room I can get.

I've had a few uninterrupted minutes to go over this build again. Very nice indeed!

This is quite the understated car. I love it!

Can you tell us more about steering clearance putting an Ecotec in a 510? I know you did a rear-steer rack and re-engineered the lca's for reduced scrub radius, and I think that is an awesome "win-win" way to upgrade the front suspension - not ONLY gaining the larger hub/rotor/brake parts

BUT!!!!! For those of us who wish to stay with the stock front suspension and steering, do you think an Ecotec would fit? -or what might you do to make it fit- if there is another way besides the rack setup you made?